Fixture or Channels

Question

I'm wrapping 6 x White LED tapes around a 5' plastic pole to make a Young Frankenstein "Electrode". The idea is to "run" the lights up and down the pole sequentially to emulate a spark going up a Van Der Graff generator. 
 For the prototype 6 channels were patched 1 to 1, to 6 DMX addresses . These were placed into new 'step' FX and it all worked very well indeed. For the Show I'm constructing two identical poles. 
 Question: Should I do as I did for the prototype and patch 1 to 1 and so on, or is there a way can make a new fixture ("Electrode") with 6 INTENS parameters patched to a single channel? 
 I had brief try with such a fixture (6 x INT Params) but when selected the ML display showed only 1 INT fader! And if I did manage this I've forgotten how to make a step FX that fires each of the INT params in turn (I'm just used to plugging in Chans)

Richard · Accepted Answer

To get the effect you're after, you have two options: 
 
 Patch them all as individual Channels, same as you did for the test. 
 Create a Multi-Cell fixture with six "cells", then apply the FX to the cells . This also gives you a 'master' channel (.0) for each electrode, which could be useful. 
 
 A personality with 6 "Intens" parameters will drive them all together, it's effectively the same as patching them all as extra Dimmer Parts, which is not what you want. "Intens", "Intens 2" etc would give individual control. This is a "legacy" approach as it's much harder to use and so definitely not recommended. 
 Personally I'd probably patch as six dimmers, but the 'master' Intensity of the cell&eacute;d approach is a useful thing so might swing it.

Fixture or Channels

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